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LIBERTY MUTUAL LEGENDS OF GOLFApril 24, 2009John JacobsFuzzy ZoellerSAVANNAH, GEORGIA PHIL STAMBAUGH: John Jacobs, Fuzzy Zoeller shoot 30, 31, 61 and 11-under par. You're tied for the first-round lead. Couple general comments from each of you about how you played as a team and maybe go through any highlights you had during the round? FUZZY ZOELLER: I'm not sure. There were a lot of highlights. What was nice is that we, as they say, your brother-in-law, that one guy was out, the other guy was in. For example, back here on, what was it, 16 back there, J.J. hit just the very front right of the green, and I stuck a wedge in about a foot. So I mean that's just kind of the way it was all day long. And we made some good putts. Not long putts, but I mean good even 10-footers. JOHN JACOBS: I know one thing, every putt I made today, Fuzzy was inside me, so when you know you have backup it's a little easier, a lot easier. FUZZY ZOELLER: But we had plenty of opportunities to make birdies, which is, I guess, about all you can ask. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Any long putts from either of you on any of the holes. JOHN JACOBS: I think the longest putt was a foot and a half. FUZZY ZOELLER: You know what, Phil. There really weren't long putts. Ten-footers maybe. JOHN JACOBS: We made all the putts we were supposed to. FUZZY ZOELLER: You're supposed to make, yeah. JOHN JACOBS: But believe me, when you play in these team deals and you got a guy that you're playing with that you like, and if you hit a bad shot, you know you're not going to -- he's not going to come break one of your clubs, it makes it easier, believe me. FUZZY ZOELLER: When you hit bad shots. I mean how would you know? I might have been over there. That's what you got George for, though. I'll beat on George. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Maybe a comment from each of you about the Legends and playing in a different kind of format that's normally played. FUZZY ZOELLER: Trust me, personally I enjoy it. I get so tired of playing medal play week in week out. Even though this is medal play, it's different. It's a team deal. And like I said, I think the key to it is to find somebody that you get along with, you enjoy and have fun with. J.J. and I played last year, even though we didn't fare too well, but you have to understand, we had a couple dark evenings last year, and we played pretty damn well for the condition we were in. But trust me, it was all fun. JOHN JACOBS: It got darker this year, but the cup was bigger today. You know, it's nice to play when you know you have backup and you're not under the gun to hit a great shot every shot. And you know if you hit it bad, your partner's going to needle you. It's not a big deal, and he knows you're trying. It makes a difference. You know, I've seen -- and I'm not going to name names, but some of these kind of deals, each player put pressure on each other. Trust me, ain't no pressure on either one of us out there. If we hit it bad, the other one's going to laugh at us. He's going to laugh at me and I'll take a Mickey at him, too. So it makes it a unique deal and it's fun. I'm just glad I don't have Phil as a partner. Christ Almighty. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Okay. Just wait for the mic. Q. I'll just start with the dark nights last year. Playing in the lead, is it going to slow you down this year? FUZZY ZOELLER: As I took my first sip of that vodka tonic. No, it's not going to slow us down. You know what, this year we're getting in at a decent hour this year. Well, we got in last night at 11:00. That was about two and a half hours earlier than we got in last year. JOHN JACOBS: Last year we teed off at 8:00. We told them nothing under 10, please. FUZZY ZOELLER: So J.J., I got him home the other night at 9:30, and he didn't know what to do with himself when he woke up at 6. Did you? He had no clue. He's out there feeding chip monks and squirrels out in the park out there downtown. JOHN JACOBS: I'm sitting in that park, I went over to Starbucks. Got the birds out there. I never even knew there was a 7:30 in the morning. FUZZY ZOELLER: 64-year-old man out there feeding the animals. JOHN JACOBS: And naming them, too. Q. Fuzzy, no stranger around here, having won the Heritage. You've designed courses around here. This course looks like it's getting better and better every year. What's your assessment? FUZZY ZOELLER: I have to agree. Getting to know the golf course -- again, this is my third year, is a big plus -- or fourth year, I think, here. But it's a golf course you can shoot a low number on, if you get it going. Right now, he'll tell you that (Ryan Durby), who caddies for me, just did a marvelous job reading those greens today. I mean he was on, but again we still have to hit it where he's saying. JOHN JACOBS: He's got better eyes. FUZZY ZOELLER: He's got younger eyes. He's only 27. His eyes are a lot younger than ours. It's fun to have him on the bag and have a kid to instill that confidence. I mean when he tells you that ball is going to break to the right, even though it looks like it's going left, you better believe it's going right. PHIL STAMBAUGH: The greens are in great shape, right? FUZZY ZOELLER: The golf course is in tremendous shape, you bet. JOHN JACOBS: This is a fun course to be playing on because there's birdies out there to be had, and it's fun. Q. Was there a number today -- is 67 out of it? Is there a number that you're out of it after today? JOHN JACOBS: Oh, no. We had a number, I said, let's just shoot 70 or better, Fuzz. FUZZY ZOELLER: I'm not sure what we shot first round last year, but I know we teed off the tenth hole on Saturday. So that's not a good sign. When the leaders are on No. 1, you're going off 10. They didn't have as much fun as we had. I'm telling you it was an absolute hoot last year. PHIL STAMBAUGH: 67 in the opening round. FUZZY ZOELLER: You didn't have to bring it up, Phil. JOHN JACOBS: I didn't think we played that well. FUZZY ZOELLER: I didn't either. Q. Looks like you've been working on your fist pump. Can you explain that? JOHN JACOBS: What Fuzzy makes it. I was fooling around. Tiger's always giving it in your face, so I thought I'd go the other way. Q. Your pump is not like Tiger's pump? JOHN JACOBS: Mine is really a tired pump. FUZZY ZOELLER: Was that "tired" or Tiger? JOHN JACOBS: I haven't made a pump in so long, I wasn't sure which hand to use. FUZZY ZOELLER: Oh, Lord. It was fun. Q. You guys were talking about how you get along so well on the course. Are there any little nicknames that you have for each other, any little pointed jabs? FUZZY ZOELLER: Everyone was, look at that screen. There's a screen back there. You can't go back there. No, there's no nicknames. If there were, we could tell you. JOHN JACOBS: I just call him the same thing as when I met him, Fuzzball. Hell of a shot there. FUZZY ZOELLER: It was just a good team effort. I mean we performed very well today, and hopefully we can continue to do that. JOHN JACOBS: In these kind of things, you gotta make fun of each other. If you take the Mickey at it, have some fun, because look, you can go out and play great golf and make three putts all day long. Other days you go out and have some fun with it and blah, blah, blah. I made some putts today, but he was inside me a lot. Probably every putt I made he had a birdie putt, too, and I just happened to make them. FUZZY ZOELLER: Of course, it doesn't make any difference who makes them. JOHN JACOBS: But it makes a big difference if you get two putts. FUZZY ZOELLER: Yeah. Always try to stay in the hole. The worst thing is being out of the hole. You want to stay in the hole and be competitive. Q. The groups that were in here earlier some said ten, 12 under a day is what's going to need to keep pace with the top of the leaderboard. Is that a conservative estimate or about right? FUZZY ZOELLER: Who knows? You're not crazy. You got professionals going at it out there. JOHN JACOBS: They're full of shit. If you shoot 11 under every day, I'm happy as hell. FUZZY ZOELLER: That's a lot of birdies. That's a lot of birdies. If you think about 18 holes, that's a lot of birdies. JOHN JACOBS: So who said that? I don't believe that. Q. You might have heard of the name. They're up there with you. FUZZY ZOELLER: You mean those young guys. JOHN JACOBS: They're up there with us, but they won't be out with us. Is that what you mean? Those two guys? FUZZY ZOELLER: You're talking about out tonight. Is that what you're saying? They're going to be out with us tomorrow. JOHN JACOBS: If it gets close, I'm just going to go over and blow my breath on them and we'll take care of the rest. Q. No matter what happens, Fuzzy, you guys will have the most fun? JOHN JACOBS: Listen, all these guys in this thing they all got plenty of money. You know, this is a fun deal, this partner deal. I mean it's fun out there. Christ Almighty, as far as who birdies or who's going to win it, you never know. Christ, you could go out and play great and not make any -- FUZZY ZOELLER: I'd like to make a comment here. Tom Kite and Gil Morgan, they made nothing today. They shot 4-under and they had plenty of putts and hit great putts, but just edges. I mean it just drives you crazy this stupid game that we play. JOHN JACOBS: Yeah, but did it make a difference when you were going like that when they were putting? FUZZY ZOELLER: It could've. JOHN JACOBS: What is that you were doing? FUZZY ZOELLER: Putting the whammy on them. Q. I know you guys are delighted to have it back as a team play, and I think the fans like it a lot better, too, because the weekend uppers play partners and foursomes and stuff like that. That's what started the Champions Tour. FUZZY ZOELLER: Everybody remembers the Legends of Golf. And it was a team event. It was so neat to watch it on TV because of the team format. I think it's tremendous, and I gotta tell you something, the scores that Gary Player and Bob Charles put up, that's very, very impressive. Somebody said they played shorter tees, but still, that hole is only four and a quarter inches round. That's amazing, and they only won by one. That was fun to watch. JOHN JACOBS: Gary's a freak. FUZZY ZOELLER: So is Bob, though. Q. Not to spell it out so everybody follows you around, but when you go out on the town, do you actually go across river out on the town or do you stay at the hotel? FUZZY ZOELLER: No. We're staying across the river. We figured -- it is kind of stupid, though, when you think about it. Yes, the Westin is very convenient to the golf course, but every time you go to dinner you gotta get on that damn boat and go across the river. So we decided why not just stay across the river and just walk to dinner. I mean, hell, all your restaurants are within two or three blocks. JOHN JACOBS: Fuzzy lost the car last year. FUZZY ZOELLER: I didn't lose it. It was a good one, but I didn't lose it. I got him back and it was dark. I parked him the first car out as you walk through that front door over there. First car, white Lexus, parked right there. I said, there you are, J.J., the very first car. Next morning he came out -- of course, we were a little stupid when we got in there. He went into the parking lot, took him an hour, and he came walking back to the front door and he happened to look over to his left and there was a white car. He goes, by God, I wonder if that's my car. And he hits the trunk button and the trunk pops open. Took him an hour to find it. It was the first car. I mean I did my job. I got him back, parked it right there in the front row. JOHN JACOBS: You think we're kidding. It was about ten minutes to tee time. I'm over at the Westin calling him on the phone. He said, where are you? I said, I'm looking for this car. For Christ's sakes, where is it? I'm out here with the clicker trying to get it to click. It was right smack in front of the valet stand. FUZZY ZOELLER: It's the best I could do for him. JOHN JACOBS: It never dawned on me it would be right in front. FUZZY ZOELLER: So he comes on rushing over here, and we have about four minutes before we tee off, you know. Not looking real good. Of course, there's a damn good reason for it, but he rips a drive down 10, knocks it in there about 80 feet and then holes it for three. I said, there you go, J.J., you didn't have to practice. JOHN JACOBS: That was it, too, for the day. FUZZY ZOELLER: We have fun with it. It's fun. PHIL STAMBAUGH: Well, good luck tomorrow. Thank you, fellows. FUZZY ZOELLER: Thank you very much. JOHN JACOBS: You really think Berhard and all of them are going to be intimidated with us? FUZZY ZOELLER: Probably not. JOHN JACOBS: Damn. End of FastScripts |
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